LITTLEJOURN 
HOMES OF ENGLIS 

By ELBERT HU6BA! 



I 



9 



ift The subjects will be as follows 
i William Morris 7 

3 Robert Browning 8 

3 Tennyson 9 

4 Robert Bums 10 Soi 

5 John Milton 1 1 Col( 

6 Samuel Johnson ^^^^^ ^^^^ 
i!|^ One booklet a montn^^^Biifiuei 
beginning January ist. 
NEYS will be issued by 
instead of G. P. Putnam's Si 
The LITTLE JOURNEYS foi 
strictly de luxe in form and workmaiiiiilprf'TK^' 
type is a new set of antique black face. Th< 
initials were designed especially fo^ 
by Mr. Samuel Warner (honest 
The paper is English hand-made. Tl 
will be stitched by hand with silk, 
ure portrait on Japan Vellum wi 
each booklet as a frontispiece. 
4|l The price of these booklets will 
five cents each, or $3.00 for the year. 

THE ROYCROFTER! 
East Aurora, N. Y. 

Anu^edatlhe Postoffice at EMt Aurora, New York, 
M Mconii^^laM mail ittattar. Copjrright, iBgg, by 




vxv:' >*>. ^^^"■^^f'Jm.<^■ 




Robert Burns 



Pwsj^^ JTt^J^C-i^j^ 





^^^^^^ 




Little Journeys 
to the Homes of 
English Authors 

. . BY . . 

ELBERT HUBBARD 


Robert Burns 


Done into print by the Roy- 
crofters at the Roycroft 
Shop, which is in 
East Aurora, 
New York, 
U. S. A, 





IHE business of Robert Burns was ROBERT 
love-making. BURNS 

All love is good, but some kinds of 
love are better than others. Through 
Burns* penchant for falling in love we 
have his songs. A Burns bibliography 
is simply a record of his love affairs, 
and the spasms of repentance that 
followed his lapses are made mani- 
fest in religious verse. 
Poetry is the very earliest form of 
literature, and is the natural expres- 
sion of a person in love ; and I sup- 
pose we might as well admit the fact 
at once, that without love there 
I would be no poetry. 
Poetry is the bill and coo of sex. All 
j poets are lovers, and all lovers, either 
[actual or potential, are poets. Potential 
I poets are the people who read poetry ; 
and so without lovers the poet would 
never have a market for his wares. 
If you have ceased to be moved by 
religious emotion; if your spirit is no 
[longer surged by music ; and you do 
I not linger over certain lines of poetry, 
jit is because the love instinct in your 
heart has withered to ashes of roses, 
lit is idle to imagine Bobby Burns as 

73 



ROBERT a staid member of the Kirk ; had he a* been, there 
BURNS would now be no Bobby Burns. 

The literary ebullition of Robert Burns, he himself has 
told us, began shortly after he had reached the age of 
indiscretion ; and the occasion was his being paired in 
the hay-field, according to the Scottish custom, with a 
bonnie lassie. This custom of pairing still endures, and 
is what the students of sociology call an expeditious 
move. The Scotch are great economists — the greatest 
in the world. Adam Smith, the father of the science of 
economics, was a Scotchman ; and Draper, author of 
** A History of Civilization," flatly declares that Adam 
Smith's " Wealth of Nations " has influenced the peo- 
ple of Earth for good more than any book ever written 
— save none. 

The Scotch are great conservators of energy. 
The practice of pairing men and women in the hay- 
field gets the work done. One man and woman going 
down the grass-grown path afield might linger and 
dally by the way. They would never make hay, but a 
company of a dozen or more men and women would 
not only reach the field, but do a lot of work. In Scot- 
land the hay-harvest is short — when the grass is in 
bloom, just right to make the best hay, it must be cut. 
And so the men and women, the girls and boys, sally 
forth. It is a jolly picnic time, looked forward to with 
fond anticipation, and gazed back upon with sweet, sad 
memories, or otherwise, as the case may be. 
But they all make hay while the sun shines, and count 

74 



it joy. Liberties are allowed during haying-time that ROBERT 
otherwise would be declared scandalous ; during hay- BURNS 
ing-time the Kirk waives her censor's right, and priest 
and people mingle joyously. Wives are not jealous 
during hay-harvest, and husbands never fault-finding, 
because they each get even by allowing a mutual li- 
cense. In Scotland during haying-time every married 
man works alongside of some other man's wife. To the 
psychologist it is somewhat curious how the desire for 
propriety is overridden by a stronger desire — the desire 
for the shilling. The Scotch farmer says, ** anything to 
get the hay in " — and by loosening a bit the strict 
bands of social custom the hay is harvested. 
In the hay-harvest the law of natural selection holds ; 
partners are often arranged for weeks in advance ; and 
trysts continue year after year. Old lovers meet, touch 
hands in friendly scufifle for a fork, drink from the same 
jug, recline at noon and eat lunch in the shade of a 
friendly stack, & talk to heart's content as they Maud 
Muller on a summer's day. 

Of course this joyousness of the haying-time is not 
wholly monopolized by the Scotch. Have n't you seen 
the jolly haying parties in Southern Germany, France, 
Switzerland and the Tyrol ? How the bright costumes 
of the men and the jaunty attire of the women gleam 
in the glad sunshine ! 

But the practice of pairing is carried to a degree of per- 
fection in Scotland that I have not noticed elsewhere. 
Surely it is a great economic scheme ! It is like that in- 

75 



ROBERT vention of a Connecticut man, which utilizes the ebb 

BURNS and flow of the ocean tides to turn a grist-mill. And it 

seems queer that no one has ever attempted to utilize 

the waste of dynamic force involved in the maintain- 

ance of the Company Sofa. 

In Ayrshire, I have started out with a haying party of 
twenty — ten men and ten women — at six o'clock in the 
morning and worked until six at night. I never worked 
so hard, nor did so much. All day long there was a fire 
of jokes and jolly jibes, interspersed with song, while 
beneath all ran a gentle hum of confidential inter- 
change of thought. The man who owned the field was 
there to direct our efforts, and urge us on in well doing 
by merry raillery, threat, and joyous rivalry. 
The point I make is this — we did the work. Take heed, 
ye Captains of Industry & note this truth, that where 
men and women work together, under right influences, 
much good is accomplished, & the work is pleasurable. 
^ Of course there are vinegar-faced philosophers who 
say that the Scotch custom of pairing young men and 
maidens in the hay-field is not without its effect on 
esoterics, also on vital statistics ; & I'm willing 
to admit there may be danger in the 
scheme, but life is a dangerous 
business anyway — few 
indeed get out of 
it alive. 



76 




URNS succeeded in his love- 
making & succeeded in poetry, 
but at everything else he was 
a failure. He failed as a farmer, 
a father, a friend, in society, as 
a husband, and in business. 
From his twenty-third year his 
days were passed in sinning 
and repenting. 

Poetry and love-making should 
caution : they form a terrific tax on 
poets die young, not because the 



ROBERT 
BURNS 



be carried on with 
life's forces. Most 
gods especially love them, but because life is a bank 
account, and to wipe out your balance is to have your 
checks protested. The excesses of youth are drafts 
payable at maturity. Chatterton dead at eighteen, Keats 
at twenty-six, Shelley at thirty-three, Byron at thirty- 
six, Poe at forty, and Burns at thirty-seven are the 
rule. When drafts made by the men mentioned became 
due, there was no balance to their credit and Charon 
beckoned ^^ytf 

Most life insurance companies now ask the applicant 
this question, ** Do you write poetry to excess?" 
Shakespeare, to be sure, clung to life until he was fifty- 
three, but this seems the limit. Dickens and Thackeray, 
senile and tottering, died at the same age Shakespeare 
died. Of course I know that Browning, Tennyson, 
Morris and Bryant lived to a fair old age, but this was 
on borrowed time, for in the early life of each there 

77 



ROBERT was a hiatus of from ten to eighteen years, when the 
BURNS men never wrote a line, nor touched a drop of any- 
thing, bravely eschewing all honey from Hymettus. 
Then the four men last named were all happily mar- 
ried, and married life is favorable to longevity, but not 
to poetry. As a rule only single men, or those unhap- 
pily mated, make love and write poetry. Men hap- 
pily married make money, cultivate content, 
and evolve an aldermanic front, but love 
and poetry are symptoms of unrest. 
Thus is Emerson's proposition 
partially proved, that in life all 
things are bought & must 
be paid for with a price 
— even success & 
happiness. 




URNS once explained to Thomas ROBERT 
Moore that the first fine, care- BURNS 
less rapture of his song was 
awakened into being when he 
was sixteen years old, by "a 
bonie sweet sonsie lass " whom 
we now know as ** Handsome 
Nell." Her other name to us is 
vapor, and history is silent as to 
her life -pilgrimage. Whether 
that she had first given voice 



she lived to realize 
to one of the great singers of earth — of this we are 
also ignorant. She was one year younger than Burns, 
and little more than a child when she and Bobby lag- 
ged behind the troop of tired hay-makers, and walked 
home, hand in hand, in the gloaming i^ Here is one of 
the stanzas addressed to " Handsome Neil : *' 

She dresses all so clean and neat, 
Both decent and genteel, 
And then there 's something in her gait 
Makes any dress look weel. 

And how could Nell then ever guess why her cheeks 
burned scarlet, and why she was so sorry when haying- 
time was over ? She was sweet, innocent, artless and 
their love was very natural, tender, innocent. It's a pity 
that all loves cannot remain in just that idyllic milk- 
maid stage, where the girls and boys awaken in the 
early morning with the birds, and hasten forth bare- 
foot across the dewy fields to find the cows. But love 

79 



ROBERT never tarries. Love is progressive ; it cannot stand still. 
BURNS I have heard of the ** passiveness " of woman's love, 
but the passive woman is only one who does not love 
— she merely consents to have affection lavished upon 
her. When I hear of a passive woman, I always think 
of the befuddled sailor who once saw one of those 
dummy dress frames, all duly clothed in a flaming 
bombazine (I think it was bombazine) in front of a 
clothing establishment. The sailor, mistaking the dum- 
my for a near and dear lady friend, embraced the wire 
apparatus and imprinted a resounding smack on the 
chaste plaster-Paris cheek. Meeting the sure-enough 
lady shortly after he upbraided her for her cold pas- 
sivity on the occasion named. 

A passive woman — one who consents to be loved — 
should seek occupation among those worthy firms who 
warrant a fit in ready made gowns, or money refunded, 
i^ Love is progressive — it hastens onward like the 
brook hurrying to the sea. They say that love is blind : 
love may be short-sighted, or inclined to strabismus,or 
see things all out of their true proportion, magnifying 
pleasant little ways into seraphic virtues, but love is 
not really blind — the bandage is never so tight but that 
it can peep. The only kind of love that is really blind 
and deaf is Platonic love. Platonic love has n't the 
slightest idea where it is going, and so there are sur- 
prises and shocks in store for it. The other kind, with 
eyes wide open, is better. I know a man who has tried 
both 1^ Love is progressive. All things that live should 
80 



progress. To stand still is to retreat, and to retreat is ROBERT 
death i^ Love dies, of course. All things die, or be- BURNS 
come something else. And often they become something 
else by dying. Behold the eternal Paradox ! The love 
that evolves into a higher form is the better kind. Na- 
ture is intent on evolution, yet of the myriad of spores 
that cover earth, most of them are doomed to death ; 
and of the countless rays sent out by the sun, the 
number that fall athwart this planet are infinitesimal. 
Edward Carpenter calls attention to the fact that dis- 
appointed love, that is, love that is " lost," often affects 
the individual for the highest good. Love in its essence 
is a spiritual emotion, and its office seems to be an in- 
terchange of thought and feeling ; but often thwarted 
in its object it becomes general, transforms itself into 
sympathy, and embracing a world, goes out to and 
blesses all mankind. 

Very, very rare is the couple that have the sense and 
poise to allow passion just enough mulberry leaves, so 
it will spin a beautiful silken thread, out of which a 
Jacob's ladder can be constructed, reaching to the In- 
finite. Most lovers in the end wear love to a fringe, 
and there remains no ladder with angels ascending and 
descending — not even a dream of a ladder. Instead of 
the silken ladder on which one can mount to Heaven, 
there is usually a dark, dank road to nowhere over 
which is thrown a package of letters & trinkets, all fas- 
tened 'round with a white ribbon, tied in a lover's knot. 
The many loves of Robert Burns all ended in a black 

8z 



ROBERT jumping-off-place, and before he had reached high 
BURNS noon, he tossed over the last bundle of white-ribboned 
missives and tumbled in after them. The life of 
Burns is a tragedy, through which are inter- 
spersed sparkling scenes of gayety, as if to 
retrieve the depth of bitterness that 
would otherwise be unbearable. 
Go ask Mary Morison, High- 
land Mary, Agnes McLe- 
hose, Betty Alison, or 
Jean Armour ! 




83 




HE poems of Robert Burns fall 

easily into four divisions. 

First, those that were written 

while he was warmly wooing 

the object of his affection. 

Second, those written after he 

had won her. 

Third, those written when he 

failed to win her. 

Fourth, those written when he 
felt it his duty to write, and really had nothing to say. 
^ The first named were written because he could not 
help it, and are, for the most part, rarely excellent. 
They are joyous, rapturous, sprightly, dancing, and 
filled with references to sky, clouds, trees, fruit, grain, 
birds and flowers. Birds and flowers, by the way, are 
peculiarly lovers' properties. The song and the plumage 
of birds, and the color and perfume of flowers are all 
distinctly sex manifestations. Robert Burns sang his 
songs just as the bird wings and sings, and for the same 
reason. Sex holds first place in the thought of Nature ; 
and sex in the minds of men and women holds a much 
larger place than most of us are willing to admit. All 
religious emotion and all art are born of the sex instinct. 
^ The second variety of Burns' poems, written after 
he had won her, are touched with religious emotion, 
or filled with vain regret and deep remorse, as the case 
may be, all owing to the quality and kind of success 
achieved, and the influence of the Dog Star. 

83 



ROBERT 
BURNS 



ROBERT Burns wrote several deeply religious poems. Now, 
BURNS men are very seldom really religious and contrite, ex- 
cepting after an excess. Following a debauch a man 
signs the pledge, vows chastity, writes fervently of as- 
ceticism and the need of living in the spirit and not in 
the senses. Good pictures show best on a dark back- 
ground o^^s^ 

"The Cotter's Saturday Night," perhaps the most 
quoted of any of Burns' poems, is plainly the result of 
a terrible tip to t'other side. The author had gone so 
far in the direction of Venusburg that he resolved on 
getting back, and living thereafter a staid & proper life. 
1^ In order to reform you must have an ideal, & the ideal 
of Burns, on the occasion of having exhausted all ca- 
pacity for sin, is embodied in the ** Saturday Night." 
It is a beautiful dream. The real Scottish cotter is quite 
another kind of a person. The religion of the live cot- 
ter is well seasoned with fear, malevolence and absurd 
dogmatism. The amount of love, patience, excellence 
and priggishness shown in "The Cotter's Saturday 
Night " never existed excepting in a poet's dream. 
In stanza Number Ten of that particular poem is a 
bit of unconscious autobiography that might as well 
ha' been omitted, but in leaving it in, Burns was loyal 
to the thought that surged through his brain. 
People who are not scientific in their speech often 
speak of the birds being happy. My opinion is that birds 
are not any more happy than men — probably not as 
much so. Many birds, like the English sparrow and 

84 



blue jay, quarrel all day long. Come to think of it, I be- ROBERT 
lieve that man is happier than the birds. He has a sense BURNS 
of remorse, and this suggests a reformation, and from 
the idea of reformation comes the picturing of an ideal. 
This exercise of the imagination is pleasure, for in- 
deed there is a certain satisfaction in every form of ex- 
ercise of the faculties. There is a certain pleasure in 
pain : for pain is never all pain. And sin sometimes is 
not wholly bad, if through it we pass into a higher life, 
the life of the spirit. 

Anything is better than the Dead Sea of neutral noth- 
ingness, wherein a man merely avoids sin by doing 
nothing and being nothing. The stirring of the imagi- 
nation by sorrow for sin, sometimes causes the soul to 
wing a far-reaching upward flight. 
Asceticism is often only a form of sensuality ; the man 
finds satisfaction in overcoming the flesh. And wher- 
ever you find asceticism you find potential passion — a 
smouldering volcano held in check by a devotion to 
duty ; and a gratification is oft found in fidelity. 
The moral and religious poems of Burns were written 
in a desire to work off a fit of depression, and make 
amends for folly. They are sincere and often very ex- 
cellent. Great preachers have often been great sinners, 
and the sermons that have moved men most are often 
a direct recoil from sin on part of the preacher. Re- 
morse finds play in preaching repentance. When a man 
talks much about a virtue, be sure that he is clutching 
for it. Temperance fanatics are men with a taste for 

85 



ROBERT strong drink, trying hard to keep sober i^ The moral & 
BURNS religious poems of Robert Burns are not equal to his 
love songs. The love songs are free, natural, untram- 
meled & unrestrained ; while his religious poems have a 
vein of rotten warp running through them in the way 
of affectation an4 pretence. From this I infer that sin is 
natural, and remorse partially so. In Burns' moral 
poems the author tries to win back the favor of re- 
spectable people, which he had forfeited. In them there 
is a violence of direction ; and all violence of direction 
— all endeavors to please and placate certain people are 
fatal to an artist. You must work to please only your- 
self r^^ 

Work to please yourself and you develop and strength- 
en the artistic conscience. Cling to that and it shall be 
your mentor in times of doubt : you need no other. 
There are writers who would scorn to write a muddy 
line, and would hate themselves for a year and a day 
should they dilute their thought with the platitude of 
the fear-ridden peoples. Be yourself and speak your 
mind to-day, though it contradict all you have said be- 
fore. And above all, in art, work to please yourself— 
that Other Self that stands over and behind you look- 
ing over your shoulder, watching your every act, word 
and deed — knowing your every thought. Michael An- 
gelo would not paint a picture on order. ** I have a crit- 
ic who is more exacting than you," said Meissonier — 
"it is my Other Self." 

Rosa Bonheur painted pictures just to please her Other 
86 



Self, and never gave a thought of anyone else, nor ROBERT 
wanted to think of anyone else, and having painted to BURNS 
please herself, she made her appeal to the great Com- 
mon Heart of humanity— the tender, the noble, the re- 
ceptive, the earnest,the sympathetic, the loveable.That 
is why Rosa Bonheur stands first among women art- 
ists of all time : she worked to please her Other Self. 
^ That is the reason Rembrandt, who lived at the 
same time Shakespeare lived, is to-day without a rival 
in portraiture. He had the courage to make an enemy. 
When at work he never thought of anyone but his 
Other Self, and so he infused soul into every canvas. 
The limpid eyes look down into yours from the walls & 
tell of love, pity, earnestness and deep sincerity. Man, 
like Deity, creates in his own image, and when he por- 
trays someone else, he pictures himself, too — this pro- 
vided his work is Art. If it is but an imitation of some- 
thing seen somewhere, or done by someone else, or 
done to please a patron with money, no breath of life 
has been breathed into its nostrils and it is nothing, 
save possibly dead perfection — no more. 
Is it easy to please your Other Self ? Try it for a day. 
Begin to-morrow morning and say, " This day I will 
live as becomes a man. I will be filled with good cheer 
and courage. I will do what is right ; I will work for 
the highest ; I will put soul into every hand-grasp, 
every smile, every expression — into all my work. I will 
live to satisfy my Other Self." 
Do you think it is easy ? Try it for a day. 

87 



ROBERT Robert Burns wrote some deathless lines — lines writ- 
BURNS ten out of the freshness of his heart, simply to please 
himself, with no furtive eye on Dumfries, Edinburgh, 
the Kirk, or the Unco Gudes of Ayrshire ; & these are 
the lines that have given him his place in the world of 
letters ^€^ 

The other day I was made glad by finding that John 
Burroughs, Poet & Prophet, says that the male thrush 
sings to please himself, out of pure delight, and pleas- 
ing himself, he pleases his mate. ** The female," says 
Burroughs, ** is always pleased with a male that is 
pleased with himself." 

The various controversial poems (granting for argu- 
ment's sake that controversy is poetic) were written 
when Burns was smarting under the sense of defeat. 
These show a sharp insight into the heart of things, 
and a lively wit, but are not sufficient foundation on 
which to build a reputation. Ali Baba can do as well. 
Considering the fact that twice as many people make 
pilgrimages to the grave of Burns as visit the grave of 
Shakespeare, & that his poems are on the shelves 
of every library, his name now needs no defense. 
The ores are very seldom found pure, and 
if even the work of Deity is composite, 
why should we be surprised that 
man. His creature, should ex- 
press himself in a varying 
scale of excellence ! 

88 L.oFC. 




HERE was certainly no Jack 
Falstaff about Francis Schlat- 
ter, whose whitened bones 
were found amid the alkali dust 
of the desert, a few months ago 
— dead in an endeavor to do 
without meat and drink for 
forty days. 

Schlatter purported, and be- 
lieved, that he was the re-incar- 
nation of the Messiah. Letters were sent to him, ad- 
dressed simply, ** Jesus Christ, Denver, Colorado," and 
he walked up to the General Delivery window & asked 
for them with a confidence, we are told, that relieved 
the postmaster of a grave responsibility. 
Schlatter was no mere ordinary pretender, working on 
the superstitions of shallow-pated people. He lived up 
to his belief — took no money, avoided notoriety when 
he could, and the proof of his sincerity lies in the fact 
that he died a victim to it. 

Herbert Spencer has said all about the Messianic In- 
stinct that there is to say, save this— the Messianic 
Instinct first had its germ in the heart of a woman. 
Every woman dreams of the coming of the Ideal Man 
— the man who will give her protection, even to giving 
up his life for her, and vouchsafe peace to her soul i^ 
I am told by a noted Bishop of the Catholic Church 
that most women who become nuns are prompted to 
take their vows solely through the occasion of an un- 

89 



ROBERT 
BURNS 



ROBERT requited love. They become the bride of the Church 
BURNS and find their highest joy in following the will of Christ. 
He is their only Lord and Master. 

The terms of endearment one hears at prayer meetings, 
*' Blessed Jesus," ** Dear Jesus," ** Loving Jesus," 
" Elder Brother," ** Patient, gentle Jesus," etc., were 
first used by women in an ecstacy of religious trans- 
portation. And the thought of Jesus as a loving ** per- 
sonal Savior," would die from the face of the earth did 
not woman keep it alive. The religious nature and the 
sex nature are closely akin ; no psychologist can tell 
where one ends and the other begins. 
There may be wooden women in the world, & of these 
I will not speak, but every strong, pulsing, feeling, 
thinking woman goes through life, seeking the Ideal 
Man. Whether she is married or single, rich or poor, 
old or young, every new man she meets is interesting 
to her, because she feels in some mysterious way, that 
possibly he is the One. 

Of course, I know that every good man, too, seeks the 
Ideal Woman — but that deserves another chapter. 
The only woman in whose heart there is not the live, 
warm. Messianic Instinct, is the v^ooden woman, 
and the one who believes she has already found him. 
But this latter is holding an illusion that soon vanishes 
with possession. 

That pale, low-voiced, gentle and insane man, Francis 
Schlatter, was followed at times by troops of women. 
These women believed in him and loved him — in dif- 
go 



ferent ways, of course, and with passion, varying ac- ROBERT 
cording to temperament and the domestic environment BURNS 
already existing. To love deeply is a matter of propin- 
quity and opportunity. 

One woman, whom ** The Healer " had cured of a lin- 
gering disease, loved this man with a wild, mad, ab- 
sorbing passion. Chance gave her the opportunity. He 
came to her house, cold, hungry, homeless, sick. She 
fed him, warmed him, looked into his liquid eyes, sat 
at his feet and listened to his voice — she loved him — 
and partook of his every mental delusion. 
This woman now waits and watches in her mountain 
home for his return. She knows the coyotes and buz- 
zards picked the scant flesh from his starved frame, but 
she says, *' He promised he would come back to me, 
and he will. I am waiting for him here." 
This woman writes me long letters from her solitude, 
telling me of her hopes & plans. Just why all the cranks 
in the United States should write me letters, I do not 
know, but they do — perhaps there is a sort o' fellow 
feeling. This woman may write letters to others, just 
as she does to me. Of this I do not know, but surely I 
would not thus make public the heart tragedy told me 
in a private letter, were it not that the woman herself 
has printed a pamphlet, setting forth her faith and veil- 
ing only those things into which it is not our right to 

pry v^rfg9 

This Mary Magdalene believes her lover was the Chosen 
Son of God, and that the Father will re-clothe the Son 

9< 



ROBERT in a new garment of flesh and send him back to his be- 
BURNS loved. So she watches and waits, and dresses herself 
to receive him, and at night places a lighted lantern in 
the window to guide the way. 
She watches and waits. 

Other women wait for footsteps that will never come, 
& listen for a voice that will never be heard. All 'round 
the world there is a sisterhood of such. Some, being 
wise, lose themselves in loving service to others — in 
useful work. But this woman, out in the wilds of New 
Mexico, hugs her sorrow to her heart, and feeds her 
passion by recounting it, and watches away the leaden 
hours, crying aloud to all who will listen: " He is not 
dead — he is not dead ! He will come back to me ! He 
promised it — he will come back to me ! This long, 
dreary waiting is only a test of my loyalty and love ! 
I will be patient, for he will come back to me ! He will 
come back to me." 

This world would be a sorry place if most men con- 
ducted their lives on the Robert Burns plan. Burns was 
affectionate, tender, generous and kind ; but he was not 
wise. He never saw the future, nor did he know that 
life is a sequence, and if you do this, it is pretty sure 
to lead to that. His loves were largely of the earth. 
Excess was a part of his wayward, undisciplined na- 
ture ; and that constant tendency to put an enemy in 
his mouth to steal away his brains bound him at last, 
hand and foot.His old age could never have been frosty, 
but kindly— it would have been babbling, irritable, sen- 
92 



ile, sickening. Death was kind and reaped him young. ROBERT 
1^ Sex was the rock on which Robert Burns split. He BURNS 
seemed to regard pleasure-seeking as the prime end of 
life, and in this he was not so very far removed from 
the prevalent "civilized" society notion of marriage. 
But it is a fantasmal idea, and makes a mock of mar- 
riage, serving the satirist his excuse. 
To a great degree the race is yet barbaric and as a peo- 
ple we fail utterly to touch the hem of the garment of 
Divinity. We have been mired in the superstition that 
sex is unclean, and therefore honesty and expression 
in love matters have been tabooed. 
But the day will yet dawn when wc will see that it 
takes two to generate thought ; that there is the male 
man and the female man, and only where these two 
walk together hand in hand is there a perfect sanity 
and a perfect physical, moral and spiritual health. 
We will yet realize that a sex relationship which does 
not symbol a spiritual condition is sacrilege. 
We reach infinity through the love of one, and loving 
this one, we are in love with all. And this condition of 
mutual sympathy, trust, reverence, forbearance and 
gentleness that can exist between a man and woman 
gives the only hint of Heaven that mortals ever know. 
From the love of man for woman we guess the love of 
God, just as the scientist from a single bone constructs 
the skeleton — aye ! and then clothes it in a complete 
garment. 

In their love a£fairs women are seldom wise nor men 

93 



ROBERT just. How should we expect them to be when but yes- 
BURNS terday Woman was a chattel and man a slave-owner? 
Woman won by diplomacy — that is to say by trick- 
ery and untruth, and man had his way through force, 
and neither is quite willing to disarm. An amalgamated 
personality is the rare exception, because neither 
church, state nor society yet fully recognizes the fact 
that spiritual comradeship and the marriage of the 
mind constitute the only Divine mating. Dr. Blalock 
once said that Robert Burns had eyes like the Christ. 
Women who looked into those wide-open, generous 
orbs lost their hearts in the liquid depths. 
In the natures of Robert Burns and Francis Schlatter 
there was little in common ; but their experiences were 
alike in this : they were beloved by women. Behind him 
Burns left a train of weeping women — a trail of broken 
hearts. And I can never think of him except as a mere 
youth — "Bobby Burns" — one who never came into 
man's estate. In all his love-making he seemed never 
to really benefit any woman, nor did he avail himself 
of the many mental and spiritual excellences of wom- 
an's nature, absorbing them into his own. He only 
played a devil's tattoo upon her emotions. 
If Burns knew anything of the beauty and excellence 
of a high and holy friendship between a thinking man 
and a thinking woman, with mutual aims, ideals and 
ambitions, he never disclosed it. The love of a man for 
a maid, or a maid for a man, can never last, unless 
these two mutually love a third something. Then, as 
94 



they arc travelling the same way, they may move for- ROBERT 
ward hand in hand, mutually sustained. The marriage BURNS 
of the mind is the only compact that endures. I 
love you because you love the things that I love. 
That man alone is great who utilizes the 
blessings that God provides ; and of 
these blessings no gift equals the 
gentle, trusting companion- 
ship of a good woman. 




95 




ROBERT [m,, — _■■!.■ 1 1 AVING written thus far, I find 
BURNS flS^al^i^v^^y that already I have reached the 

limit of my allotted space. 
In closing, it may not be amiss 
for me to state that Robert 
Burns was an Irish poet whose 
parents happened to be Scotch. 
He was born in Ayrshire in 
1759. He died in 1796, and is 
buried at Dumfries. 
His mother survived him thirty-eight years, passing 
out in 1834. Burns left four sons, each of whom was 
often pointed out as the son of his father — but none of 
them was. 

This is all I think of, at present, concerning Robert 
Burns m^ 

For further facts I must refer the Gentle Reader to the 
Encyclopedia Brittanica, a compilation that I 
cheerfully recommend, it having been vouched 
for to me by a dear friend, a clergyman of 
East Aurora, who, the past year, pe- 
rused the entire work, from A to 
Z, reading five hours a day, 
& therefore is compe- 
tent to speak. 




so HERE ENDETH THE LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME 
OF ROBERT BURNS, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUB- 
BARD : THE TITLE PAGE AND INITIALS BEING DE- 
SIGNED BY SAMUEL WARNER, THE WHOLE DONE INTO 
A PRINTED BOOK BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR 
SHOP, WHICH IS IN EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, 
M.iY., IN THE MONTH OF APRIL IN THE YEAR MCM ^ 



X 



AT the AUCTION SALE, held in 
•^*- New York, March 1900, of the 


Library of the late Augustin Daly, 


ROYCROFT BOOKS sold 


as follows: | 


Names of Books and Auction Sale prices. 


Original 
price. 


THE PHILISTINE, Vols. 1-7, last 
three unbound, $3.50 per vol., 


$24.50 


350 


RUBAIYAT, No. 763 of 920 copies, 
green chamois. 


7.50 


2.00 


RUBAIYAT, Half gray levant, 


6.50 


2.00 


RUSKIN-TURNER, inscribed, 


x6.oo 


5.00 


ECCLESIASTES, 


10.00 


2.00 


ART AND LIFE, Japan paper, 


7.50 


5.00 


ON GOING TO CHURCH, 


3.00 


1. 00 


BOOK-WORM, Autographs of Irving 
Browne and Elbert Hubbard, one 
of 590 copies. 


16.00 


5.00 


UPLAND PASTURES, illuminated 
copy, 9 aquarelles. 


21.00 


7.50 


SESAME AND LILIES, one of 40 
copies. 


20.00 


10.00 


THE LEGACY, Two Vols., 


12.00 


3.00 


JOB, One of 350 copies, 


12.00 


5.00 


DESERTED VILLAGE, 


15.00 


10.00 


IN MEMORIAM, 


7-50 


2.00 


SONNETS FROM THE PORTU- 
GUESE, Autograph letter from 
publisher enclosed. 


18.50 


5.00 


FAMOUS WOMEN, De luxe, 


13.00 


10.00 


SEEMS TO ME, On Japan Vellum, 
one of 40 copies, 


n.oo 


10.00 



\ 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 

■H. 

014 389 925 1 <# 



(htfal takei 



■cent stamp by George H, 

?w Vol 
York. 



